


over again

by gamb



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Hugging, Mid-Dominaria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 12:32:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17745965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamb/pseuds/gamb
Summary: Jace arrives on the Weatherlight, but Gideon's relief is short-lived





	1. Chapter 1

Travelling by airship had its advantages.  Speed, for one. The journey over the Great Ocean, a week even by airship, would have been months in a conventional ship.  According to Jhoira, the  _Weatherlight_ nearly flew itself, leaving its crew plenty of time to rest and plan their assault on Belzenlok’s stronghold.  They would be well-rested when they arrived, and their plan had been discussed for days, leaving Gideon confident that all foreseeable pitfalls had been accounted for, even if he still wished he could have Jace’s input.  They were in prime position to defeat Belzenlok, thanks to the airship.

Still, Gideon considered, he would have rather trekked across a continent by foot.  Flying left too much time to think and too little to occupy the body, leaving the mind to go mad chasing itself.   He sighed, and lay in his bunk, and tried to clear his thoughts

Hixus had impressed upon a young Gideon the importance of reflection.   _ Failure teaches us how to be better _ , Hixus had counseled.   _ Facing failure is hard _ ,  _ but refusing to face it only ensures you’ll fail again _ .  Gideon wished he could discuss the situation with the old jailkeeper.  Perhaps he would return to Theros once they were finished with Belzenlok.  Seek out his old mentor and new wisdom before turning to face Bolas. He needed--  

A wooden  _ thunk _ in the room next to him had him charging to his feet and drawing his sword before rational thought caught up with instinct.  Shouts sounded, and he shoved open the door to the hallway, the door to the next room--

_ Jace _ .

Gideon halted midstep.  

Even under a ragged beard and unkempt hair and torn clothes and sunburnt skin, it was Jace, unquestionably, unmistakable, somehow on the  _ Weatherlight _ , somehow  _ here,  _ grinning and wiping muck off his boot and looking around at the crewmen he'd disturbed with his arrival.  It didn’t seem possible. How had Jace found the  _ Weatherlight _ ?  Where had he been, why return now?  He couldn’t be real, could he? 

Gideon’s sword shook in his hands.  Clumsily, he resheathed it, pinching his knuckle between pommel and scabbard as he did so.  The sharp pain told him he wasn’t dreaming, but then what--

“Gideon!  I'm not dead!” Jace smiled, laughed, and Gideon's sense of surreality grew.  If this was not a dream, then perhaps a vision--dementia magic from the Cabal?  A distraction--

“Who’s the bookworm?” Jaya asked, stepping in front of Gideon and crossing her arms.

“Can thallids count?  'cuz he got one of the little ones and the big one might be upset if it realizes that.”  That was Raff, eyebrows raised, grimacing at the blackish smear that had been a saproling.

“I'm Jace, a friend of Gideon’s.”  Jace offered a hand to Jaya, who took it and turned to Gideon, one eyebrow raised questioningly.  It reminded him of the face Chandra would give him whenever she thought he was being stupid.  Chandra should be told Jace had arrived, Gideon realized, but someone else would have to do it. His jaw was frozen and his mouth was dry and he struggled to swallow. He couldn’t breathe out, only in. Speech was impossible.

Three steps brought him to Jaya.  The fourth brought him to Jace.  _ He doesn't like to be touched _ , Gideon reminded himself, but a more pressing impulse overrode his warning.  He wrapped Jace into a tight hug and, finally, managed to exhale. Jace laughed again and Gideon felt the smaller man lean in and wrap his own arms around Gideon.  There could be no mistaking--Jace was here, solid, real, safe,  _ alive _ .  This close, he smelled distinctly unlike himself, like sweat and swamp muck and seawater, and Gideon could feel the wrinkled places where his shirt had been crudely patched.  Where had he  _ been _ all this time?

Gideon heard, as if from far away, Jaya escorting Raff from the room and calling for Chandra.  The remaining saprolings trailed stickily after Raff.

“Hey.”  A hand patted his arm.  “It's okay.” Gideon let go and took a step back, letting his hands come to rest on Jace’s shoulders.

“You're injured,” he noted quietly, voice rough.  Dried blood from some unseen wound under Jace's hair coated his neck and shoulder.  A grey-purple bruise covered much of his left bicep and he had a number of scrapes on his arms and hands.  One marred the tattoo on his chin.

“I'm fine.  I'm...pretty good, actually.  Sorry it took me so long to get here; I didn't mean to be gone that long.  Well, I didn't  _ mean _ to be gone at all, but...” Jace’s grin turned sheepish and he gently pulled himself free and sat at the vacated table.  “It’s a long story. Where’s everyone else?”

Gideon heard an echo of the fear he himself had carried for months in the question

Gideon sniffed and rubbed away the wetness in his eyes. “Chandra and Liliana are here.  Ajani was too, but he went to go find someone. Nissa isn't--Nissa left.” The last one still stung, and Gideon wondered again if he should have gone after her, instead of staying with Liliana.

Jace frowned.  “Left, what? For good?  Where’d she go?”

Gideon shook his head.  “I don’t know. She renounced her oath.”

“What happened to you?  You're practically naked!” Chandra interrupted, slowing from a run as she entered the room to gape at her teammate. 

Jace laughed again and looked down at himself.  “I've got a shirt, mostly, and pants.”

“Practically naked for  _ you _ , I mean,” Chandra insisted. She flopped into the chair across from him. “You didn’t take that cloak off even when we were out in the desert.  What happened? Where have you been?”

“A plane called Ixalan,” Jace answered.

“Never heard of it,” Chandra said.  “Gideon, stop hovering.” She slapped his leg, and Gideon took the chair between them, at the head of the table. 

“You wouldn't have,” Jace replied.  “Once you planeswalked there, you couldn’t planeswalk away, so there was no way for news of it to spread.”

“So why’d you go there?”

“Remember Ugin?  He made a trap for Bolas on Ixalan a long time ago, but something went wrong and he never triggered it.  When I met him at the Eye I told him  _ I _ had met Bolas, and unbeknownst to me he then placed a trap in  _ my _ mind to compel me to Ixalan if Bolas ever broke through my mental defenses.  He hoped Bolas would follow me into the trap, I guess.” Jace sighed and shrugged.  “It didn't work.”

“Asshole thing for Ugin to do.”

“It wasn't a _bad_ plan.” Jace sounded like he wasn’t sure he believed that.  He grimaced. “I would've liked to have been consulted.”

“Jace.”  Liliana appeared in the doorway, followed by Jaya.  “Nice of you to join us.” Gideon noticed a strangle wobble in her sarcasm, as if she were out of breath.  He noted too the way Jace’s grimace ossified into a polite smile as he saw her.

“Liliana,” Jace greeted.  His gaze fell to the table.

She frowned, taking in his appearance.  “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah.”  He nodded and looked up at her, then back down.  Liliana pulled out the chair next to Chandra and made a show of straightening her skirt before seating herself.  They sat in silence, Chandra fidgeting in her seat and Jace scraping at the table edge with his thumbnail. Liliana’s gaze flicked back and forth over Jace, as if she was cataloging every difference she could spot.  There was a history between them, one Gideon had never properly heard, and he imagined knowing it now would have helped him figure out why every word between them seemed to have twenty unsaid words behind it.

“Well, the gang’s almost all here.”  Chandra clapped her hands together, breaking the silence.  “Who wants to kill a demon?” 

“Is that what you're doing here?” Jace asked, looking to Gideon.

Gideon nodded.  “It's Liliana's last one.  She'll be free to help us with Bolas then.”

“Oh.” Jace nodded, but his expression remained stiff.  He folded his hands before him. “That may have to wait.  I--”

“Why?” Liliana interjected, too loudly.  Gideon frowned and shifted in his chair, willing Liliana not to overreact.  He could sense the coming argument. He imagined it would go much as the confrontation with Nissa had, and he ran through the counterarguments he had come up with since, trying to decide which could best ease the mounting tension.

“I learned--on Amonkhet, I managed to get a glimpse of Bolas’s plans.”  Jace caught Gideon’s eye. “Nothing specific, but enough to figure out what he’s doing.”

Jace took a breath and looked at his hands, then at each of them in turn.  “He's going after Ravnica.” 

Gideon thought of Sunhome, and projected the devastation of Amonkhet onto the millions who inhabited Ravnica.  Destruction on such a scale had to be prevented.   “We'll be there,” he said solemnly.  Anticipating Liliana’s protest--and indeed, she had already turned incredulous eyes on him and opened her mouth to speak--he raised a hand and continued.  “We’re less than a day’s flight from the Stronghold. Breaking in to get the Blackblade and kill Belzenlok won't take long. Two days, maybe three, and we'll all be on Ravnica.”

Jace frowned and stared at Gideon, as if he was surprised by Gideon’s answer.  “I learned Bolas’s plan _five months ago_ and he's been working on it ever since.  We don't have  _ time _ for demons.  He could make his move at any minute.  We need to spend every second we have left preparing our defense.”

“Liliana will be a key part of that defense,” Gideon explained.  “Bolas has created an undead army. Undead armies are Liliana's specialty.  We need her at full strength.”

“Ravnica has plenty of undead specialists,” Jace said.  “Talented as Liliana is, I don't think the delay is worth it.”

“What?  You cannot possibly believe some Golgari shaman could do what--”

“I didn't say they could do better than you,” Jace cut her off.  “I said I don't think the difference in ability is worth wasting three days on.  Besides, the main challenge will be disabling the enchantments controlling the Eternals, which, as you noted on Amonkhet, aren't traditional necromancy and will require a different skill set.  Anyone can control them once those are gone.”

Chandra looked from one to the other, then to Gideon.  Liliana took a breath, and Gideon could almost see her figuring out what hole to attack.  He  decided to preempt her.

“I don't agree,” he said. “Liliana will be useful, and we have everything in place now to defeat Belzenlok.  It took us months to get here and I don't think it's wise to abandon our mission now.”

“Our  _ mission  _ is to stop Bloas,” Jace insisted.  “Which--you can do whatever you want, but killing Liliana’s demon isn’t going to defeat him.”  He looked at Chandra, who chewed her lip and wouldn’t meet his gaze, and then to Gideon, who did his best to remain calm.  

“‘Even the best soldier will fall, if his blade is dull’,” Gideon responded, echoing words Hixus had told him long ago.  Memories of Nissa’s angry accusations threatened to weaken his resolve, but he had spent too long preparing to kill the demon to give up now.  And they _did_  need Liliana.  “We can’t have Liliana hobbled the next time we face Bolas.”

“If it helps, once Belzenlok is dealt with, I will be able to aid you.  Perhaps Karn too, if he can be convinced to let Phyrexia wait,” Teferi said from behind him. Gideon startled--at some point, Teferi and Raff had entered the room without him noticing.  They stood with Jaya near the door, listening but respectfully keeping silent. “Bolas’s gaze will turn back to Dominaria in time, and I have family here to protect. But Belzenlok is the immediate threat.”

Jace flashed a sour smile at the older planeswalker, then appraised the table.  “You've made up your minds.”

Gideon rested his hand on Jace’s shoulder.  “We won't let Bolas take Ravnica,” he promised.

Liliana’s eyes were dark and downcast and she sat, arms crossed, fuming silently.

“Look, we messed up on Amonkhet, but we're figuring stuff out,” Chandra said, finally looking up from her hands.  “I know what I did wrong. And Ajani and whoever he's bringing will be there, and Teferi and Jaya and Karn. Bolas is toast.”

“I hope you're right,” Jace told her.  He sat for a moment, seemingly thinking.  “I'll see you on Ravnica, then. You know where to find me.”

“You're not staying to help?” Chandra asked.

Jace shook his head.  “I can't. I've been away too long already.”

_ I can’t help you anymore, _ Nissa snarled in Gideon’s memory.

“It'd go faster with your help.  An illusionist would make the break-in easier,” Gideon pointed out.  He smiled, trying to rekindle the camaraderie they'd had just minutes ago. 

“I'm an illusionist,” Raff said, from near the door.  Gideon heard Jaya shush him.

“Perfect,” Jace said.  He stood and nodded to Raff.  “He can help. I have to go start preparing for an invasion.”

“Jace--” Gideon stood as well.  

“You just--” Chandra began.

“ _ Don't trust her _ .” Jace’s voice echoed in Gideon's mind.

“ _ Liliana?   Why? _ ”

“ _ She's got you running her errands for her, just like she used to have me doing.  I don't know what her plan is, but the only person who'll benefit from it is her _ .” An uncharacteristic anger echoed in Jace's mental voice, and Gideon frowned, trying to determine the cause.

“ _ You're the one who said she'd be valuable to the team _ \--”

“ _ I made a mistake _ ,” Jace cut him off.  “ _ I'm trying to correct it _ .”

“ _ I think you're wrong about her.  I've spent a lot of time _ \--”

“ _ Gideon, I'm a mind mage and she managed to fool me.  She's had centuries to become good at what she does. Don't make the same mistake I did.  Don't underestimate her. Don't trust her. _ ”

“--got here.” Gideon felt the mental link drop just as Chandra finished her complaint.

“Jace,” Gideon repeated, though he knew his entreaty would be useless.  “Please, stay awhile and rest. You’re injured.” He thought of the night he and Jace had met, and how Jace had forced an injured and exhausted Gideon to rest instead of rush to the next battle.   The telepathic link between them was dead, but Gideon concentrated on the memory, hoping Jace might still be listening.

“Sorry,” Jace said.  “I’ll see you all when--when you’re done.”  He took a breath and stepped backwards, fading into a blue haze.  The rest of them sat, silent and still. Gideon felt a new worry forming in his thoughts.  Twice now, he had defended Liliana against a teammate’s accusations. His instincts told him Liliana was trustworthy, but those same instincts also told him that Jace’s counsel was almost always correct.  Defeating Belzenlok  _ felt _ right, and Gideon wasn’t sure the team could prevail against Bolas without Liliana’s power, but Jace had been so sure that Ravnica had to take priority...

“Well,” Chandra said, as she leaned back and slid down in her chair until she was nearly lying in it. “That was great.”

“So are all of your meetings just arguments, then?” Raff asked from the doorway.   Gideon ran his hand over his face and made a noise somewhere between a sigh and growl.  

Liliana sat, arms crossed and lips twisted as if she’d eaten something sour.  She sucked her teeth and clapped her hands to the table. “Off to Ravnica, then?” She smiled, or at least her lips twitched into a facsimile of a smile.

“No,” Gideon said slowly.  “I meant what I said. We need you at full strength, and for that we have to kill Belzenlok.”  Liliana blinked, as if stunned to find that Gideon would once again choose her over his other teammates.  A thought occurred to him, and he caught her gaze and held it. “Would you have come with us, if we were?”

The fake smile vanished.  She pulled at her sleeve, but held his gaze.  “No. This is the best shot at him I’m likely to get.”

  
Gideon nodded.  She had hesitated, just for a moment, before speaking.  That was a victory, if a small one. If the price for his hubris on Amonkhet was only this--Chandra and Liliana by his side, Nissa gone but safe, Jace angry but still with them--then, Gideon considered, he had been luckier than he had any right to be.  

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Liliana had remained in a hostile mood since her brother’s death, spitting answers to Gideon’s questions when she deigned to answer at all, and Ajani’s arrival and abrupt departure only darkened her mood.  Still, Gideon found he needed to confide in _someone_ , and burdening the crew of the _Weatherlight_ seemed rude, even if it would be easier than dealing with Liliana.

“I'm worried about the others,” he said quietly, as they leaned on the railing of the airship with Ajani’s admonitions still echoing between them.  To her, the statement must have come out of nowhere; she wrinkled her nose and quirked her eyebrows at him, looking both disgusted and confused at the same time.

“Worry about yourself,” she huffed as she reshuffled her skirts.  She spotted a beetle crawling along the weathered deck rail, and she plucked it off and held it up to study.  “Killing Belzenlok will be harder with just the two of us.”

“But--it’s been a month.  Why haven’t we heard from them?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking _me_.” Liliana shrugged.  The beetle vanished in a dim flash of violet, causing several members of the crew to stiffen and turn to find the source of the necromantic energy.  Liliana didn’t notice, or perhaps pretended not to. “I certainly don’t know. I'm sure they're fine.”

She gave a wry smile and her nonchalant tone wavered as she continued.  “It's not like they haven't run off before.”

They hadn’t, in Gideon’s experience, and he wondered what she was referring to.

“Besides, I don’t see what the point of worrying _is_ ,” Liliana continued in a rush.  Her voice returned to an airy, unconcerned tone, but her brows drew down and her lips twisted like she tasted something unpleasant.  “They chose to go gallivanting off. It’s not like we could find them now anyway.”

It was not an answer Gideon found comforting.


	3. Chapter 3

They would face Belzenlok tomorrow, and Gideon knew he needed a full night’s sleep before facing the demon.  Even so, he found himself up on the deck, staring at Dominaria’s stars. No other world had a night sky as stunning as Theros’s, but Dominaria’s was pleasant, full of bright stars and subtle swirls of color.  Much more beautiful than the dull, orangish twilight that was as close as Ravnica ever got to night.

He wondered if it was night on Ravnica, and what Jace was doing.  Not sleeping enough, probably, the same as Gideon. Still, it was comforting to know where he was and that he was safe, or at least as safe as he could be.

He heard someone coming up the steps behind him.  “Hey,” Chandra said. “Can’t sleep either?”

“I haven’t tried yet,” Gideon admitted.

“I’m too excited.  I’m so ready to torch this fucker,” Chandra continued.  “Then no more  _ arguing  _ about Liliana’s demons.  We’re sure she only had the four, right?”  she deadpanned, and Gideon gave her a half-hearted chuckle.

“Yes,” he replied.  And if she did have more, he privately considered, perhaps she would have to deal with them herself.  It was becoming distracting. 

“I mean, it’s not all bad.  Like, we’re helping people here, which is what we swore to do, so that’s good.  Defeating tyrants and all.” She seemed to be thinking aloud, running her hands up and down the railing, and Gideon wasn’t sure what response to give to her rambling.  “And then we’ll meet up with everybody at Jace’s house. Apartment. Whatever he calls it. Ravnican buildings are weird. And then I can go talk to Nissa. She’s gotta be on Zendikar, and she won’t be that hard to find.”

“Do you think she’d come back?”  Gideon wasn’t confident that Nissa could be convinced to return.  They’d never discussed the fates of their missing companions, and he wondered whether Chandra had been worried too, as he had been.  

“‘Course she will,” Chandra replied, though her tone belied the confidence of her words.  “No more Liliana demons, for one, and I’ll talk to her and say something really convincing that I haven’t figured out yet but I will, and then it’ll be like it was.  Better than it was, even.”

“That would be nice,” Gideon agreed.  He had his doubts, but he was unwilling to shatter Chandra’s apparently-fragile confidence.

“Yeah,” Chandra said, her hands stilling on the railing.  Her brow wrinkled in thought. They stood in silence, and Gideon began, finally, to feel tired.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been working on this in various forms since Dominaria and finally got to the "screw it, just post it" phase. It was at one point part of a larger work that never came together; following chapters will be excerpts from that. I'm not wasting nearly 10k words of fic.


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